Patch 1.3: The details we know so far

Hey everyone, there has being quite a lot of speculation over the contents and features coming with 1.3. We have received hints here and there from the development team via interviews, official podcasts and the Q&A. I thought it would be nice to summarize what we know so far about the upcoming patch 1.3 with actual quotes and information from the official source and curb some of the misinformation that is spreading out there.

During the recent Electronic Arts Financial reports it was mentioned that two new content packs – Legacy and Allies will be available in Q1 (Quarter 1, source). Since Q4 for the previous year ended on March 31, 2012, Q1 for this year will start on April and last until the end of June. Patch 1.2, Legacy, was released on April 12, so we can expect patch 1.3 titled Allies to release sometime in June (a bit too late to release it in May given that there are less than 2 weeks until the end of month and the patch has not hit the PTS yet).

When is patch 1.3 hitting on the PTS? On May 17, Joveth Gonzalez, the Associated Online Community Manager said on the SWTOR forums that “We’re in internal testing on the major features right now, and we’re getting closer every day to deploying Game Update 1.3 to the Public Test Server”.

You choose what role(s) you want to fulfill (choices are presumably limited by your advanced class – i.e. snipers can’t choose tank role for example).

You can select specific flashpoints/contents you want to queue up for.

You can also choose a random flashpoint/hardmode flashpoint. If you do it this way, you may get daily rewards. The daily reward for random hardmode flashpoints will be Black Hole Commendations (source)

Group finder is same server only (IGN interview)

It will teleport you to the target location once the queue is ready (IGN video)

You can already see this in the COMING SOON tab of your legacy window although the unlock details are not available at this moment. This may change once patch 1.3 is being finalized but basically you have

Advancement: Get more xp from killing major enemies in flashpoints, more xp from doing space missions, and more xp from completing warzones (see chart below, info taken from IGN video and subject to change in final build). Each rank requires the unlock of previous rank and the xp bonus is cumulative (Getting rank V will cost 200k-300k credits in total and give you 2+4+6+8+10 = 30% xp bonus)

Rank I

Rank II

Rank II

Rank IV

Rank V

Credits

20k

30k

?k

?k

100k

Legacy Level

5

10

15

20

25

Xp Bonus

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

It was just pointed to me that the legacy window in the video looks different, here are the differences. NEW refers to the window in the video and OLD refers to the legacy window currently on live servers.

Note that there are now 2 additional new row of buttons, each with the XP icons on them. So this will be in addition to the flashpoint, warzones, and space mission xp boost in the current build (could be xp bonus for class quests – source)

Companions: Get more affection from gifts, conversation choices, increase the chance of companion crit while crafting, and companions sell junk faster.

Travel: Faster sprint, ability to use level 25 speeders at level 10

If you look at the legacy window in the video, you will also notice that the travel section was also modified. There are now 4 new icons that have replaced the previously 2 icons for faster sprint and a new icon resemble the earlier speeder icon was also added (this might mean that you get access to the level 40 speeder at an earlier level).

Edit: It appears these 4 new icons are actually travel “ports” to different planets. See this quote from Darth Hater interview released recently – also the icons resembles planets.

You can, for example, buy the right to use the various speeders at an earlier level, gain bonuses to companion affection from gift giving, earn new abilities that allow you to jump your character quickly to key locations throughout the galaxy, or even allow you to redistribute your skill points (‘respec’) in the field. (Damion Schubert,, DH interview)

Convenience: Portable repair droid, field respec, portable mailbox.

In the video, you can see that we still have the 3 levels of repair droids but now we also have 2 other icons for portable mailboxes (probably unlocks to reduce the cooldown). it appears that the Medevac thingie (respawn at the med-center with more health) was removed (was kinda useless anyways).

Unfortunately, it appears that these legacy unlocks are character specific and not legacy wide. If you hover over the coming soon section of the legacy tab, you will notice this block of text.

“You are also getting the next part of Legacy, which we had a little in-game advert going for that beforehand, which are your character perks, which is that is all about the uniqueness of your character how you want to play each individual character” (Daniel Erickson)

Augment slots were first mentioned as part of patch 1.3 in the Official Podcast. Recently, more details were revealed in an interview with Inquisitor’s Roadhouse. This was followed by David Hunt with three dev posts on May 18 giving out more details (#1, #2, #3)

If you don’t like reading walls of text, you might find this infographic helpful.

Augment Slots can now be added all items that are green in quality or above (doesn’t have to be crafted item. any item will work)

Augment slots are tiered from MK-1 to MK-6. The tier of the augment slot will determine the tier of augments you can add to it. Augment slots can be upgraded to a higher tier (max is MK-6 but there are plans for MK-7 and MK-8 in the future).

To add an augment slot, you will need to go to an item modification station and use credits + augment kits. Credits rank from 4.5k to 50k for augmentation slots of MK-6 tier.

Augment Kits are acquired via three professions exclusively: Armstech, Armormech, and Synthweaving. These three professions make identical kits and the schematics for these kits can be acquired via their crafting trainer.

Augment kits are tiered like augment slots. To make an augment kit of a certain tier, you will need 10 augment slot components of that MK tier. These components can be obtained via Reverse Engineering crafted items of the same MK-tier (you get 1 component everytime you get an item, regardless of its slot or quality – i.e. purple chest and green bracers all yield 1 component) – source). These augment slot components are in addition to the crafting materials you would have obtained via REing these items pre-1.3.

Alternatively, you can obtain augment slots by crit-crafting items. The item level will determine the MK tier of the augment slot post 1.3.

For gear pre 1.3 that contains an augment slot, they will be converted to the MK tier augment slot corresponding to the item level or the inserted augment level (the higher of the two). So if you have a level 27 item containing a level 49 augment pre 1.3, after patch 1.3 it will be converted to a level 27 item with a MK-6 slot (since level 49 augment corresponds to MK-6 slot) (source)

This means that if you have an empty augment slot on a crit crafted gear pre-1.3, they will be converted to the augment slot MK tier corresponding to the item level (i.e. level 27 item will have a MK-3 augment slot if it doesn’t have a higher level augment inserted into it).

One thing to keep in mind is that you can upgrade augment slots to higher tiers – so even if you crit craft an lower level item in 1.3 or forgot to put a MK-6 (level 49) augment into your pre 1.3 items with augment slots, you can still upgrade them to the highest tier, it just costs credits!

Augments, much like augment kits and augment slots, will be tiered after 1.3. You can only insert augments into slots that are higher or equal than your augment tier. (image modified from the Inquisitor Roadhouse interview with the updated MK tier)

Adaptive social gear is the ability for the social armor (which are currently all light armor) to “morph its armor rating based on the skill of the wearer” (Damion- Official Podcast). This essentially means that if you wear heavy armor, the social gear will morph into heavy armor for your character.

Some people tend to take this to meant that all the armor will be adaptive. This is not the case, the only kind of gear that was mentioned to be adaptive so far by the devs are social armor.

This feature, in conjunction with campaign armoring that carries set bonus and augment slots, will provide a bit more variety in armor appearance customization.

More schematics: During the two recent friday Q&As (May 4th and May 11th), it was mentioned that patch 1.3 will bring more orange schematics for hands, feet, wrist, and waist (the number of hands & feet schematics was estimated at 75) via underworld trading. These feet/hands/wrist/waist schematics are potentially matching the 3-piece sets that are currently craftable by armormech/synthweavers (“We’ve wanted to open this up to players for awhile, especially because some outfits really need the belt in order to look right” – David Hunt, May4th Q&A).

Reduced extraction costs: Extraction costs will be reduced by 30% – this means that the current 44k per Q61 armoring/mod/enhancement extraction will be reduced to 31k or 93k for all 3 mods.

gabarooni: As a long time tank (nearly 10 years), I’ve come to the conclusion that holding Aggro is not fun. Tanks already have to watch their survivability, cooldowns, position mobs, watch their groups position and health, and fight the mobs—all of which I enjoy. Are there any plans in Game Update 1.3 to increase threat generation for tanks? Especially for Guardians and Juggernauts?

Austin: Actually, yes. We’ll have more detailed information for you soon, but you can expect some improvements in threat generation, AOE threat, and quality of life.

Hargan: Will the Commando Gunnery spec be rebalanced after the changes in Game Update 1.2 so that we are back on par with the DPS output of similarly geared Sages/Gunslingers/Sentinels in Operations?

Austin: I think I’ll confirm a lot of suspicions with this answer, but the bugfix that addressed Demolition Round scaling had a large enough impact on Gunnery DPS that it surprised us, too. Although Gunnery and Arsenal had been hitting our targets, it became harder to do so than we were comfortable with. Another way to say that is that the "low end" of our test results was hit too frequently by too many people. The changes you’re going to see are mostly in resource management and usability, which will make it easier for you to deliver the considerable damage you already wield. We’ll have more detailed information for you soon.

Brutalos: What class balances can we expect from Game Update 1.3 and will it undo some of the changes done in 1.2?

Austin: Game Update 1.2 brought damage dealing and healing roles closer to target than they had previously been. If for you and your class that meant a reduction in performance, that can be a hard thing for me to justify to you. I think it’s fair to say that some of those changes were made by reducing usability instead of just reducing numbers, and it’s these usability issues that we want to correct and negative changes to usability that we don’t want to repeat in the future. Like I said before, we’ll have more detailed information for you soon, but if I had to identify a motif for class changes in future updates, it’d be "improved usability."

No dual spec: Unfortunately, dual spec has being confirmed to not be part of 1.3 in the April 27th Q &A by Daniel Erickson. However, it might make it to patch 1.4, which is going to be a bigger update. (“Game Update 1.3 is being kept a bit leaner to get the Group Finder and the next stage of Legacy in the game as fast as possible. After that we’ll be returning to some bigger updates and we’re hoping dual spec makes it for the next one”)

Nightmare Explosive Conflict? During the PaxEast Q &A, someone asked when Nightmare EC will launch and the answer was that the dev team is aiming for the next game update (1.3). However, Stephen Reid on May 16 said on twitter that there is no current ETA for Nightmare EC’s release although the team is working on it.

“Nightmare mode when it comes, won’t be just a title and a pat in the back. It will come with its own itemization so there will be a real reason to do nightmare” – Emmanuel PaxEast Q&A Day 3.

Torhead Leaks of patch 1.3: Torhead leaks has being going around the internet for a while now. It was pretty accurate for patch 1.2 and predicted Lost Island and Explosive Conflict. However, given that Bioware said specifically it was going to be a features patch and will be content light, it is doubtful if any of the leaked info for 1.3 will be true.

To give you an idea, the leaked 1.3 info predicted the companion HK-51, which was rumored to exist back in beta (although the quest in the Hoth bonus area for it was bugged). This is still likely given that Bioware always added some extended scavenger hunt/puzzles in the game every once in a while (patch 1.2 brought in the hunt for tauntaun and orobird pets). Also, during the MCM Expo, Emmanuel dropped this.

Q: When are we going to see HK-51 droid?

A: Yes, we are not talking about that. I know there has being a few leaks on websites kind of hinting at it so I am going to hint at it as well and that will be all.

The other two predictions for Patch 1.3 are a flashpoint called Titans of Industry and an operation called Terror from Beyond. Given that Bioware repeatedly stressed the content light nature of this patch, both are very unlikely to make it into patch 1.3 (especially the new operation since Nightmare EC has not been even confirmed for 1.3 yet).

Server transfers these days is a very hot topic. You literally can’t go anywhere without seeing threads/screenshots etc about the need for server transfer. Bioware got the message and more details will be released soon.

So far what we know about server transfers are the following

Coming in Early Summer

It is going to be “free”

First wave will be targeted free transfers from/to specific servers, followed by a broader system where you have a choice between promotional server transfers to specific servers or paid transfers to the server of your choice (April 27t Q&A)

You will retain all the legacy unlocks, even if the legacy you are transferring to is of a lower level (May 11th Q&A)

According to the Aussies who have transferred, they were allow to transfer as many characters as they wanted, although you can only have 8 characters maximum per server (source)

Ranked Warzones. The sudden removal of ranked warzones from 1.2 was very unexpected and upset a lot of hardcore PvP players.

The recent Q&A mentioned that the ranked warzones are on for patch 1.3.

Mindspore: Any update on Ranked Warzones in 1.3?

Daniel: Ranked Warzones is on track for 1.3. All the heavy lifting (ratings, group persistence exiting warzones, etc) is done and right now we are working through some emergent conflicts with Group Finder and the process of queuing for multiple activities at once with multiple temporary groups.

However, during the MCM Expo, Emmanuel mentioned this bit.

Q: What is happening with ranked warzones? They were suppose to be in 1.3, but they are not?

A: Oh no, it’s a warzone question! Ranked warzones, we added them in 1.2 to the PTS. You can have a very good design on paper and it is a very good design when you prototype it, and when you put it with the rest of the game you realize that it is not that good. The problem with ranked warzones we found just before we released 1.2 was that we let people just queue by themselves for ranked warzones. When you have ranked warzones, the important thing is your rank goes up and down based on your wins/loss. Something that is very personal, your rank, was in the hands of something so complete strangers that you have no control over. You could be starting a warzone and then you notice that guy on your team who is just terrible and just abort the warzone when the team loses. It is one thing to be upset at end of the match with your teammates whom you communicate in vent etc but it is a different thing to be upset at strangers. Rather than releasing it, we decided to disable it.

We went back to the drawing board to create a good experience where you queue up for the ranked warzones as a complete team (not a group of 4 but a group of 8). We also had to make sure that once the warzone is over, your group is not dissolved. When we made this decision, we realized that we have to fix a lot of things to give you a good experience.

It is going to be on for 1.3 but whether it is enabled or disabled it is going to dependent on all the testing we done internally and on the PTS. It is going to be very disappointing personally and for you guys if it is not on but then again we reserve the right to postpone it if it is not to the quality we want.

Related Posts

yay for social gear getting right armor for the wearer class!
yay for cheaper extraction of mods (to fit into those social sets or whatever oranges you want to wear!
yay for getting augment slots easier on all those oranges!
yay for speeder at lvl 10 and faster xp bonuses (altoholic anonymous…)

Cole

Faster sprint, I would think this would be capped in PVP as it would be a considerable advantage, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t.

Jan Bloxham

Plenty of good stuff. Big shame it wasn’t in place sooner. SWTOR is hemorrhaging subs due to many of these lacks.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1804062572 Johnston Cheng

One question, and I wonder if anyone here knows the answer. With the additional of craftable orange belts and bracers, will the Campaign or other end-game belts and bracers be changed to have extractable mods?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1209653272 Robin Gort

Hey Dulfy, you might want to remember all the other features of the Legacy 2. One of the perks is a field respec, which one could essentially see as a mini-‘dualspec’, in relation to your infographic.

I’ve been looking for info on what the 3 tiers of “Repair Droid” do, and how much it costs. Also “Priority Medevac”, does this mean above 100% health?

Andilus

They just posted a video with some more details. What caught my eye was the two extra rows of Legacy Advancement unlocks (in addition to bonus XP from warzones, FP and space missions). You can see it at 1:26 of the video (http://www.swtor.com/info/news/news-article/20120522)

Andilus

Eh the link was a bit weird. This would work better http://www.swtor.com/info/news/news-article/20120522

dulfy

oh cool, thanks for catching that bit! I will add it in Wish we know what these are

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1209653272 Robin Gort

Good catch indeed, also there’s indeed more unlocks for travel as well.

EDIT:
Uploaded a screencap here:http://imgur.com/cQfUE
From what we can mix and tell from the icons, there’s going to be another tier of the speeder unlock, maybe the lvl 40 mount at lvl 25 or something similar?

Can’t tell what the first 4 icons of Travel are though, they don’t look simular to the sprint upgrades.

Andilus

Also, it’s May, not March. =P I totally missed the other new icons on the right and bottom of the panel…guess that goes to show how much I want the xp boost for warzones…

dulfy

Doh, fixed! Somehow i am still living in march

Andilus

And I continue to spam the comments. Last for a bit, I promise.

In the game updates section of the official website (http://www.swtor.com/gameupdates), there’s this one bonus sentence in the section about the new legacy perks after mentioning bonus warzone, fp and space xp: “Some Legacy Perks will even grant you extra experience for continuing a character’s story!” So maybe that’s a clue to what at the extra rows may be about?

dulfy

oh yes, class quests could be one, thanks!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1209653272 Robin Gort

Anyone know if you can fit in lower level augments in higher tiers? You’d imagine they would work retroactively.
Because I kinda don’t to risk having (eventually) useless augment slots on my crafted gear I use for leveling process.

dulfy

yes you certain can. The augment will fit in slots that the same tier or higher (i.e. a MK-3 augment will fit in MK-6 augment slot).

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1209653272 Robin Gort

I think its the wording that’s confusing. Or maybe I’m not understanding it completely.
“Augments, much like augment kits and augment slots, will be tiered after 1.3. You can only insert augments into slots that are higher or equal than your augment tier.”

The augment kits will give an augment slot to an item.
The kits are gated to itemlvl brackets.
The question then is:
Will the augment slot allow any augment?

Because if it could allow any augment in it’s slot, then what’s the fuzz about augment slots being turned to a lower tier on low level items?

EDIT:
I read into it a little bit deeper, and the wording of DavidHunt make it clearer.
So for your level 10 item, if you know you will use it until 50, then you should apply the highest level kit and replace the augment as you level. If you use a lower tier kit and reach a point where you want to place augments higher than the kit originally used on the item, you will need to upgrade the augment slot using a new kit.

dulfy

so let me try to explain it and see if this helps.

Augment slots can fit any augments that are of the same tier or lower. i.e. augment slot MK-3 only fits augments that are MK-1, MK-2, or MK-3.

Augments on the other hand, can fit in any augment slot that are only the same tier or higher. i.e. a MK-3 augment will fit in MK-3 slot, MK-4, ML-5, and MK-6 slot but not MK-1, or MK-2 slot.

Hope that clears it up

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1209653272 Robin Gort

It does, thanks for clearing that up for me with your reply, Dulfy.
You might want to consider quoting DavidHunt or reword it a bit, because as you can see it could lead to a bit of confusion. That, or I’m just being a bit silly.

Keep up the good work!

dulfy

sure, I will quote him to clear up any further confusions

Bill Pendleton

SO if I was to purchase my Columi War Leader’s Body Armor now…could I add a MK-6 slot to it after the patch?

dulfy

yup

Noim

Very interesting read, Dulfy.
Just to be sure, when you say “Augment Slots can now be added all items that are green in quality or above”, you do mean that things like T3/T4 implants, offhand, ears will be moddable that way, right? If such is the case, it means all we need to do til 1.3 is farm 10 ears and offhands of lvl 49, 20 implants of the same level, then wait for 1.3 and mod our T3/T4 items with the Augment slot MK6 we’ll have crafted from the RE’s result. Cool stuff!

dulfy

yes, everything and anything can be modded. Another thing I like to point out is that you don’t need to RE the same stuff as the one you want to augment to get the components. If you want to put an augment on a ear for example, you can RE 10x crafted boots and get the component.

Noim

Oh, so to put it straight, get a Armorer, Synthweaver or Weapon maker, make them craft 10 random item of the right level and you get one Augment.
Hmmm… cool, even though one could feel it trivializes crit-crafting.

dulfy

Yes but if you get lucky via crit-crafting, no need to spend the 50k

Butter

This system particularly impacts PvP gear. Think: earpiece, implants, offhand, belt, bracers; none of them have extractable mods. With that I mean: you can’t “transport” them into orange augmented gear. For those items, this new system is ideal and will change the pvp landscape considerably. That’s 180 points added right there.

dulfy

ah very good point!

Gregarus

Does anyone know if one can RE mods (barrels, for example) to get augment slot components?

dulfy

no, I don’t believe so. The stuff you can RE for augment components are usually the stuff you can crit craft to get an augment slot. Barrels can’t crit with an augment slot so no.

Gregarus

Thanks for the answer, and of course for all the informative articles – this one especially.

http://www.facebook.com/ivander.atmojo Ivander Laurentius Atmojo

So, we can RE any green stuff from the appropriate level to get those 10 components required for the creation of the augment slot in any orange gear? Also these orange gear includes those orange Exalted and Renowned gear right?

dulfy

Yes you can RE any green crafted gear to get the mats for augment slots. Also, I don’t think putting augments on gear is limited to orange moddable gear, I think you can actually put augment on all types of gear but only orange gear really matter. Specifically, the orange exalted and renowned can definitely be augmented.

http://www.facebook.com/ivander.atmojo Ivander Laurentius Atmojo

Amazing post as usual Dulfy! Can’t wait for the inside look of the 1.3 in PTS

well so far 1,3 isnt doing anything for me as a player so i;ll stay unsubbed when they fix the bugs in the quests and make crafting plausable again then maybe i;ll resub but even the legacy is junk, if your not a pvper or pver there is nothing in switor for you

pfff they can better start giving black hole gear for free… why would people even have to do some effort stilll…
starting to get the wow feeling again… and that is one of the main reasons i quitted wow

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